Lesson Plan on What Does a Judaic Studies Teacher Do? Part One

When mentoring our pre-service and in-service teachers we need to describe and model both research-based and clinically tested best practices. This is one of many lessons we will be sharing on teaching Judaic content, lesson planning, models of teaching, differentiated and individualized instruction and learning activities designed to transform the classroom into a Jewish community of cooperative learners. The title of this lesson is “What Does a Judaic Studies Teacher Do?” Since there are 13 elements in each lesson plan (see the description of the 13 elements at this url: http://richarddsolomonsblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/13-elements-of-each-lesson-plan.html) we will divide this lesson plan into two parts.

Title of Lesson: What Does a Judaic Studies Teacher Do?

Enduring Jewish Knowledge Rationale for the Lesson: A Judaics teacher is one who engages students in the study of Torah. Also see the enduring Jewish knowledge rationale from the previous lesson.

Essential Question/s: What does a teacher do? What does a Judaic Studies teacher do?

Assessment/s: (Initial, ongoing, and final activities designed to measure what the student has learned)
Students individually, in pairs, via classroom discussion and as a homework assignment discuss the answers to these essential questions. What does a teacher do? What does a Judaic Studies teacher do?

Objective/Learning Outcome: (What the student is supposed to learn from this lesson.) The student will be able to define in his or her own words the answer to this question: What does a Judaic Studies teacher do?

Name of the Active Learning Procedure: Rally Round

Anticipatory Set: (Motivation activity that prepares students for the learning outcome)

Suggested Motivational Statement:
“Now that we have discussed what it means to be a teacher and more specifically a Judaics teacher, let’s explore this topic more deeply. Having been students in a classroom for many years, you know a great deal about learning and teaching; so here’s my challenge to you. Think about this question. What exactly does a teacher or a Judaics teacher do?”

Introductory Activity: (Initial exercise to focus on the objective/learning outcome)
Give students a few minutes to individually record the activities a teacher or Judaics teacher does in their notebooks.



On the next post we will share part two of this lesson, What Does a Judaics Teacher Do?